BLACK WIDOW (1951)

Christine Norden

BLACK WIDOW (1951). Director: Vernon Sewell.

A man is thrown out of a car and onto a highway, but he survives to show up at the home of a woman, Sheila (Jennifer Jayne of The Crawling Eye), and her father (John Longden). Unfortunately the man (Robert Ayres) has amnesia and just wandered into the place. After resting up for a few days with these good Samaritans, he takes off to see if he can find out who he is. The title pretty much tells you that there's a wife in the picture, Christine (Christine Norden), and our man gets home to her just in time to attend his own funeral. Then there's his best friend, Paul (Anthony Forwood), and a certain insincere glint in Christine's eye ... Black Widow is a short, forgotten Hammer non-horror film that plays and looks like a TV episode. There are no twists to the plot, the acting is competent, Norden is reasonably slinky, and the film has nothing much to offer. It is barely an hour long. Not to be confused with the 1954 Nunnally Johnson film Black Widow.

Verdict: Forgettable. **.